Last ARC Corp chapter for this year. I'll be back again 9th January with next chapter. There is one last chapter of Remnant Invicta tomorrow, and then I'm off. Have a good xmas everyone.

Cover Art: Kirire

Chapter 35

Vale was at peace.

Well, not really. The Vytal Festival was on its way, crime had risen in preparation for it, faunus inequality was being highlighted thanks to the increased media coverage, and there were still questions – and conspiracy theories – as to why heavily armed officers had been sent down into the subway tunnels, and why the rash of subway murders had suddenly abated. Add onto that the fact that the White Fang had been caught stealing dust alongside Roman Torchwick, and that a giant mecha robot had been lost by Atlas near to the city, and it was fair to say Vale wasn't entirely peaceful.

But her apartment was, and so was the Containments Office, and those – alongside her muffin place – were the only parts of Vale she cared to think about in the week and a half since Mountain Glenn. It was a blissful cycle of wake, coffee, muffins, office, nap, sleep, repeat, and Blake Belladonna was all for it. There hadn't even been a call from Nicholas or the other members of ARC Corp, and the Council of Vale hadn't seen fit to ask for a debriefing either. Evidently, they were happier with ARC Corp nowhere near them because that meant things were normal. She could relate to that.

Of course, things couldn't stay normal. That would have been too much to ask for. No, life, fate, circumstance or whatever else was behind the anomalies felt the inevitable need to come and take a steaming dump on her chest, and that turd came in a green suit with white hair and a cane. It also came flanked by Qrow Branwen, just to ward off the possibility of an attack. That didn't stop Timothy backing Qrow into a corner hissing, spitting, and clicking its legs together as the man tried to climb a bookshelf.

"Ozpin," said Jaune, with the same kind of emotional anticipation one has for an approaching tsunami. "I had almost thought today was going to be a good day. Unless you're here to hand yourself in for the betterment of humanity."

"You and I have very different ideas on what constitutes as beneficial to the human race, Mr Arc."

"Of course we do. An alien intelligence such as yours would struggle to even understand us, let alone understand what's best for us."

"And you do?"

"I know that Vale still stands because of us. Where were you again?"

Ozpin let out a heavy sigh and leaned on his cane. "Must we always do this, Mr Arc? It is so very childish."

Blake snorted from her sofa. "You wanted to leave him to die when I came to you before. You don't get to talk about childishness or pettiness."

"I have been… busy on other things," said the headmaster. "The festival, the Grimm-"

"Who released that anomaly again?" asked Jaune. "Oh, that's right. You. Every single person who ever died to the Grimm is directly your fault." He eyed the man shying away from Timothy. "It amazes me you can keep anyone's loyalty after being responsible for their teammate's death. Good on his sister for having some common sense."

"You are still in touch with Raven?"

Blake didn't recognise the name, but Jaune obviously did. He swung his feet up onto the table and said, "I don't see how that's any of your business. Why did you come here, Ozpin? If it's not to hand yourself in then it must be because you've fucked up again and there's another anomaly loose in Beacon."

"You are not incorrect."

Blake groaned. Even if it had been long enough for a break, she couldn't help but wish she could have another week or two off work. Mountain Glenn had been that exhausting. "Again? Not another invisible stalker."

"Not quite. In fact, I believe this anomaly was present and active the last time you were there. That we all missed it… well, we had greater concerns at the time. The more immediate threat was the individual who could enter any room unchallenged."

Another? Blake wracked her mind but all she could remember was the panty-thief and Jaune's stupid gambit to lure him or her into attacking them, which he'd failed to make her aware of until the last possible second when it tried to strangle her. Looking back on it, she should have been able to guess Crocea Mors was an anomaly because it hadn't turned invisible when Jaune struck the wielder of the Blank Slate. Everything else had, including the flour they'd thrown on him and the clothes the person had been wearing.

"I'm drawing a blank," said Blake.

"A little help over here?" cried Qrow.

Blake sighed. "Timothy, no. Stop that." The spider looked back at her mournfully. Blake rolled her eyes. "Timothy, you don't know where he's been. He's probably filthy."

"Oi!" cried the man. "I am not."

"Okay. Fine. Timothy, eat him."

"No, wait! I'm disgusting and riddled with STDs!"

"Nice try but Ruby already filled us in on your record with women." Blake paused and tapped her jaw. "Unless you mean you've been paying for it, which I can well believe. Come here, Timothy. He isn't worth it. You'll catch something nasty."

The Guardian Weaver hissed and spat at Qrow one final time before scuttling over to Blake. It hopped up onto the sofa, curled its eight legs under itself and lowered its furry abdomen down for her to lean her arm on. Terror had taken on a different meaning after Mountain Glenn and now, well, she wasn't sure how she'd ever thought this dumb ball of affectionate fluff was scary.

Childbirth on the other hand? Well, Kali and Ghira were going to be waiting a long freaking time to become grandparents was all she could say. A long time. Adoption had never looked so promising, nor so stress-free.

"I see Mountain Glenn has done wonders for your spirits, Miss Belladonna," said Ozpin. Blake offered him a single finger in return, and a silent invitation to sit and spin on it. "Back onto the main topic, I believe you saw the anomaly I'm referring to with your own eyes. It was right there in the open and we all missed it. No two anomalies can exert their effects on one another, as you well know. The one you took from Beacon erased the memory of everything it or its wielder touched, up to and including clothing. And yet if you look back you will realise that there was one article of clothing that did not disappear – one that Miss Belladonna even saw him absconding with, and which alerted her to the threat."

Who used absconding in everyday conversation? Someone who wanted to sound smart, that was who. It felt like he was leading up to that because why else draw out the fact they should have remembered it if not to laugh when they didn't? Blake couldn't recall anything from the job in Beacon other than the bad guy, their near-death experience, and the fact he'd been stealing underwear from-

"The panties!" cried Blake.

Jaune got it a second later, and his head fell into his hands. "No. Just no."

"Miss Belladonna has it," said Ozpin. "The very reason our thief was able to steal so easily was because the underwear he took was affected by the anomaly could not be perceived, and yet Miss Belladonna caught him because of a pair of floating women's undergarments. Undergarments which, I remind you, should by all accounts have been rendered invisible."

Unless they were could not be – in which case the only explanation was that they themselves had been anomalous, and the Blank Slate hadn't been able to exert its influence over them. Blake groaned into Timothy's back, less upset about missing out on it and more horrified at the idea that they – ARC Corp – were about to engage on a raid to locate and capture an underwear-based anomaly. Jaune was of the same mind.

"Ozpin, no. It's panties."

"It is an anomaly, Mr Arc. You are ARC Corp."

"Those panties have existed in Beacon since the beginning of the year at the very least. They're harmless."

"How very progressive of you, Mr Arc. Is that not what I have been telling you for the longest time about aura?"

"Panties are harmless," snapped Jaune. "Light of the Soul has infected most every human on Remnant, and still has unknown side-effects that we don't know. For all you know it could be literally burning away people's souls like firewood. People should not be using their souls to tank bullets! How does that sound healthy or even a good idea!?"

"Then you will come deal with the anomaly?"

"Is it an immediate issue?" asked Jaune. "Is there danger? Wasn't it in that team's form we saw the last time? Problem solved."

"Of late, Glynda has had one hundred and seventy complaints of young women's favourite underwear going missing. On being asked to describe the issue, each has depicted the exact same pair. It has started moving... and it has been worn by almost half the girls in Beacon."

Blake summed that up in one word. "Gross."

"Quite. I'd rather the issue be dealt with before it comes to blows. Or infection."

Blake groaned again. "Can't you?" she asked. "You're a huntsman; Qrow's a huntsman; you're in a school of huntsmen. I get not being able to handle an invisible person, but undergarments? Is that too much for proud huntsmen and huntresses?"

"Were this any other time, Miss Belladonna, then I might. Alas, the Vytal Festival is here and I am buried under paperwork, meetings, briefings and more. I simply do not have the time to rummage around through the underwear drawers of my students. Nor the freedom. The scandal would be quite something."

"How are we even meant to find it?" asked Blake. "Search every room? Flip every skirt?"

"That is for you to decide. Not I." Ozpin smiled and stepped back toward the door. "I'll look forward to hosting you this weekend. Please try not to cause a riot by sexually assaulting our students. They're quite capable of fighting back."

/-/

Blake signed the signature for the mailman and tipped him a couple of lien – she'd have offered him an additional tip of not gawking at a woman's tits while she was signing for a parcel, but he looked a little too gone-out for that. She slammed the door in his face and wandered back over to Jaune with the parcel in hand. "Something came for you. Where do you want it?"

"Here." He tapped his desk. "This is the answer to our pant-related problem."

Oh good. Blake had been less than enthused for the trip to Beacon. It wasn't that it was more work because this sounded a lot less mentally draining than Mountain Glenn, but more because she had no idea how they were going to find one specific pair of pants in a school filled with people. It wasn't like they had caused any obvious effects other than not being affected by the Blank Slate, so they didn't even know what anomalous factors to look out for. Jaune had told her he had a plan, however. And he'd gone off and called Coral.

"What is it?" asked Blake. "Some kind of anomaly-detection device?"

"I wish. It'd be amazing if Coral could make something like that. I suppose this is. Of a sort." He opened the paper wrapped around a box marked with his address and then opened the box itself. Inside was a plastic wrapper around what looked to be a simple studded collar and a leash.

Blake blinked at it. "Wrong package?"

"No. This is it."

With zero warning, Jaune brought the collar up to his neck and clipped it in place. Immediately, he went from a man sitting at his desk to the most terrifying monster imaginable. Blake screeched and threw herself back as the evil fiend looked back at her with malic. Jaune wrenched it off and was back to normal.

"Hey. Hey. Calm down. It's not real."

"That was terrifying!"

"It was only a dog…"

"That," repeated Blake, "-was terrifying. What the fuck, Jaune – why would you mail an anomaly!? What if a postal worker found it? What if it got lost and mailed to someone else?"

"Coral mailed it. I asked for her to deliver it and thought she'd be doing it in person. Fool on me for expecting common sense." He set the collar down. "This is the anomaly dubbed I AM DOG. All capital letters. It was found by Coral in… well, let's just say there was a club in Atlas that catered to certain types of games of an adult nature, and that they were especially well-known for fetishes surrounding pet play between dominant and submissive partners."

"Ew."

"It's a recognised kink, Blake."

"Please see my previous response."

"Yeah, well. Either way, what this does is cause the person wearing the collar to appear – to anyone and anything who perceives it – as a dog. The one holding the leash can see things normally, of course. It also doesn't change the person into a dog. I could walk around on two feet with this and everyone would think I was a dog on all fours. It has a couple of other effects, but all our testing thus far shows it as being perfectly harmless. No long-term side-effects, or even any short-term ones."

That was all well and good, but she wasn't sure how one of them looking like a dog was going to help them find the anomaly. "Is it for Timothy?"

"It'd be good if it could work on him but he's an anomaly himself, so no."

It really was a shame. It would have been nice to take him out for walks and let him stretch his legs. Plus, she thought it would have been funny to see people kneeling to stroke the "cute dog" and not realise they were cuddling a monster. Okay, thought Blake, maybe my time in ARC Corp is warping my sense of humour as well as my sense of fear. Eh, the pay is good.

"So, what's the plan for it?"

"It's going to be both a distraction and a metal detector of sorts. First of all, no one is going to be happy about seeing one of us rummage around in their underwear drawers, but if we frame this as a drug bust and this as a sniffer dog then it's totally fine. Also, it's a dog. No one is going to cry pervert on a dog sticking its nose among some clothes. That's just what they do."

And presumably by nose he meant hand. That might look like the dog pawing at the underwear, but either way it wouldn't be as fury-inducing as Jaune and her rummaging around. "Okay. And the metal detector part?"

"No two anomalies can exert the same effects on one another. Therefore, if you were to touch the panties while being under an illusion making you look like a dog, then the illusion would – or should – shatter instantly."

"Or the panties could be the effect that is nullified and the dog one remains."

"Or that," admitted Jaune, "but the way I see it is 50-50, and we need an excuse to be going through people's rooms anyway. The other option, which I think you'll hate a lot more, is that we gather every piece of underwear in Beacon and then you and I have to try them on in front of one another to catalogue any unusual effects."

Blake crossed her arms over one another in front of her in a big X-shape. "No way."

"I'm not keen to try on women's underwear either, Blake…"

"Then who is becoming the dog? It's me, isn't it? Put the collar on the faunus."

"I'm happy to wear it," said Jaune. He had a placating look about him, or an awkwardly uncomfortable one. He obviously hadn't connected the dots on the faunus abuse angle, and she supposed that was a good thing. If he hadn't considered it then that meant it never once crossed his mind. "Are you going to be okay with me looking like a dog? You freaked out before."

Blake's silence might have seemed like indecision to him, but she was actually wondering how Jaune could use it at all when he was, in essence, an anomaly. That was what Coral had said. His lack of aura had let the transformation take hold, and his arms were supposed to literally be anomalous. How, then, had he been able to look like a dog to her? She'd have accepted it if his dog arms had been on fire, or – more disturbingly – if he'd become a dog without forearms, or even a dog with human forearms, but he'd just turned fully into one.

Was it a case of him not being anomalous until he transformed? Was it a side-effect of him being not a pure anomaly, but some kind of anomaly-human hybrid? In a sense, that might make it the same as her being a faunus, except she was several generations mixed and he was more like half and half. There were more questions than answers, but Jaune was waiting for hers about the issue of him looking like an animal she feared, so Blake pushed them back – he wouldn't have the answers, anyway – and focused on his.

"It's different if I hold the leash, right…?"

He offered it to her. "Try it."

Blake took the leash in one hand and Jaune yet again put the collar around his neck. Nothing happened. He sat there, in his seat, one eyebrow raised at her. "You're the same as always."

"I feel the same as always."

"How do we know this is even working?"

Jaune sighed and stood. "I guess we're going to have to go outside and find out."

Blake tugged on the leash and brought him back down. Her eyebrows were raised high. "And if it doesn't work and people look at me like I'm some kinky freak for taking you out on a leash? What then?"

"Blake, you're going to be taking me around Beacon like this. We need to test it."

Their apartment building was in a quiet area of Vale but that didn't mean it was empty. There were people coming and going who moved around and past them, and Blake felt more than a little awkward holding her boss on a leash. Jaune looked just as conflicted, standing with his hands in his pockets and a collar around his neck, shuffling on his feet as people parted around the both of them. A minute passed by as Blake wondered how they were supposed to test this before a woman with a white shopping bag approached them with a huge smile.

"Oh, he's so cute!" she gushed. Jaune closed his eyes and blushed mournfully. "Can I touch him? Does he bite?"

Who, Jaune? Blake's mouth opened and closed and her eyes flicked to him. Even if she'd expected this, she wasn't sure what to say. "Um. He's nice…?"

"He sure looks it." The woman didn't actually reach down as if Jaune was at the height of a normal dog. Why, Blake wasn't sure, or how this worked at all, but such were anomalies. Instead, the woman tussled Jaune's hair as if a six-foot dog was perfectly acceptable, then stroked his cheek and finally rubbed her fingers under his chin. Jaune looked like he wanted to bolt. "He's such a handsome boy. Aren't you? Aren't you just so handsome?"

"I guess it works," said Jaune.

"Oh, he likes it!"

"Another effect of I AM DOG is that she can't perceive my speech as human either," said Jaune. "I'm whining or barking or making some sounds that are more dog-like."

"He's quite the vocal one, isn't he?" said the woman, letting go of Jaune with a contented smile. It was as if touching him had completely brightened her day, which wasn't so much anomalous as just the weird way Blake had seen a lot of people act around dogs.

She never understood it. Dogs were evil.

"Is he yours?"

"I'm just walking him," said Blake. "He belongs to my boss."

The woman stroked Jaune a little more before excusing herself with a delighted smile. A few other people were watching and pointing as well, but they pointed with smiles and laughter, and not gasps and frantic whispering, so Blake assumed it was working as advertised. Before she could convince him to go back inside, Jaune started walking, and she was left to follow at his side if only so she didn't yank him back on the leash.

"This is also kind of a good way to talk privately," said Jaune. "Though only I can do it. I mean, people do talk to dogs, but probably not about work. Anyway, if I find something odd when I'm going through Beacon then I can tell you without anyone overhearing."

Blake responded quietly. "What if someone with aura strokes you? Wouldn't aura run the risk of breaking this?"

"Because of Light of the Soul? No. It's like faunus – they're both born of anomalous effects, but it's part of your blood now, and diluted. The original Light of the Soul is likely dead or hiding somewhere, and now what people call aura is more like an infection or blood cells. It's genetics now. It's part of life on Remnant. Anomalies can still work around you despite you being a faunus, and they can work around people who use aura."

"What about the transformations and what Coral said?"

"That's different. Anomalies can have effects on people despite them having aura, but it can't transform them until they have spent it all. One is a temporary thing, like throwing a blanket over someone, and the other is changing them on a fundamental level. Light of the Soul won't combat the first, but it wouldn't allow the second because that would mean it was being changed as well, and that's not how anomalies work. It's complicated," he added. "As most of this is. We're working on incomplete knowledge for the most part, and there's always the chance things will change. For all we know anomalies do work on one another, and they're all just pretending not to because it's one big prank."

That almost certainly wasn't the case but she understood the point he was making. They didn't know for sure and were forced to make assumptions based on correlation. Anything could be disproved, and she had to be ready for it to be. Also, the laws and rules that governed anomalies and their interactions might not make sense because anomalies didn't make sense. Not much point holding the reality-altering objects to natural laws and standards.

Maybe that was what it meant with him being part anomaly and the collar working. Or maybe it was because the collar was on his neck and not his arms, and because the collar wasn't changing him in any physical way. It was actually affecting other people so in a sense the two anomalies weren't in competition. Jaune was still himself with his burnt arms, but other people's eyes – or brains – were being messed with. But then, the Blank Slate must have been the same? Or had that been different because the Blank Slate was more than just invisibility, and actively tried to erase the wearer's identity, which the anomaly was part of…? It might have been caught out for trying to erase the fact Jaune was an anomaly, which would have been impossible. It was all so confusing.

They reached a park without once being stopped for a woman walking a man on a leash. It was as good a proof as any that the anomaly worked, and more than that… she had to admit to being a little curious.

"What's it like?"

"Wearing this?" Jaune looked back and shrugged. "It's no different than normal. I'm still me and I see myself as a person the same as you do. The weirdest part is having people fawn all over you. Well, that and the feeling of wearing a collar." He smiled suddenly and fixed her with a wry look. "You're curious, aren't you?"

No.

Yes.

Maybe.

The idea of wearing a collar was still downright disgusting to her, but she'd be lying if she said she wasn't at least a little curious as to how it felt to be under the affects of an anomaly that wasn't trying to kill her for once. Blake looked at the nearby bushes and nodded her head toward one.

They slipped behind them and a few trees, then Jaune got down flat to hide and removed the collar once she gave him the all-clear. One woman and one dog entered, but it was a man in a suit that stood up. Luckily, no one was too focused on them at a park in the middle of a weekday when most people were working. Blake took the collar, then fixed Jaune with a glare.

"No one learns of this. No one."

"I mean, this is literally an anomaly, Blake. It's company policy to tell no one." He grinned. "Trust me. It's fine. Nothing will change from your point of view, but if you're worried about the faunus angle then remember no one will be seeing a faunus with a collar. You'll look like a dog."

Hopefully not think like one, though. Blake took a breath and put the collar on. The odd part was that her neck and Jaune's weren't the same size, but the anomaly fit snugly either way. Anomalous size-altering properties, obviously. Once it snapped into place there was a distinct lack of any feeling at all. No change, no odd thoughts, no unusual sights, smells or anything else. "Did it work? What kind of dog am I?"

"I'm holding the leash. You're just you." He handed it to her. "Here, let me step back and see."

He let her take the leash and then took a step back. Instantly, his eyes widened briefly and he looked up and down her. It would have made her feel a lot more uncomfortable if she wasn't dimly aware of what he could see.

"Whoah. That's weird. Cute, though. It looks like you're holding the leash in your mouth."

"What am I?"

"And you're barking. Give me the leash back so I can hear you." He took it, and she repeated the question. "I'm not that familiar on breeds, but I think you're a papillon."

The name meant nothing to her, so she drew out her scroll and searched it for images, then cried out as she saw the cutest, smallest, most insufferably adorable dog ever. It was a toy dog – one of those tiny things rich women carried in their handbags. It was not a dog that she would have likened herself to, and the reality of it was a crushing blow to her self-esteem. "No! I refuse! I can't be so pathetic!"

"I don't make the rules, Blake."

"This is so messed up. You get to be a big, shaggy Labrador and I'm a tiny ball of cuddle-fluff." She looked around before ducking and taking the collar off. Instead of putting it back on, Jaune shoved it in his pocket. The anomaly only seemed to work when the collar was on someone's neck, making it one of the most harmless she'd seen. "But I guess it'll work in Beacon. So, you're a sniffer dog and I'm your handler?"

"Looks like it. Unless you want to reverse roles. I won't lie – I'd feel more comfortable with you rummaging through women's unmentionables than me."

Honestly, she would as well, but it was a toss up between the uncomfortable feeling of releasing Jaune on women's undergarments or having to masquerade as a dog for an entire day. Blake was prepared to let the women of Beacon suffer for the sake of her own dignity. Quite frankly, she'd suffered enough in Mountain Glenn. It was their turn. "Sorry, but no. The collar part is still an issue for me."

"That's alright. You'll have to do all the talking, though. I won't be able to."

"Fine with me."

"I can provide you cues if you need them, I guess. Maybe this is for the best. I can cheat by giving you information and no one will be able to hear it."

Blake smirked. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you were looking forward to this."

Jaune's look in return was agonised. "You know better."

"Shall I let Ozpin pet you?"

"I'm not above biting the hand that feeds me, Blake. Remember that."

Blake placed her hands on her knees and cooed. "Who's a good boy?"

"Blake, no."

"Who's a good boy?"

Her employer sighed. "I suppose that I am the good boy, aren't I?"

"That's right!"

"You will pay for this, Blake. I swear it."

/-/

What comes around goes around, or so they said. Blake supposed this was proof of that, as she stood alone – not alone, but she might as well have been since everyone else saw a dog beside her – on a stage in Beacon's auditorium faced by hundreds of students. Jaune was stood beside her looking bored, and he could afford to, as no one could judge his reaction. Blake was stiff-backed and unsure what to do with her hands as Miss Goodwitch spoke.

"-and that is why Beacon will be playing host to the same investigators who helped bring down the interloper using their Semblance to prey on students at this very school. They will be conducting investigations to find the root cause of this dangerous drugs incident. They may well request access to your dorms, at which point I trust everyone will cooperate to the best of their abilities. Please do not bother her or her trained sniffer dog."

"Woof woof," said Jaune, sarcastically.

Everyone else actually heard the dog barking.

"Thank you," said Glynda, actually smiling a little. "They will be seen around Beacon. Please do not interrupt them or take too much of their time. Thank you all for coming and I thank you for your understanding."

A hand was raised.

"Yes Miss Xiao-Long?"

"Can we pet and cuddle him?"

"No," said Jaune. "Absolutely not."

"I'm sure that won't be an issue," said the teacher, failing to hear him. Blake cringed. Especially as the grown and normally very stern woman leaned over to rub her fingers over Jaune's head, right atop his scalp between what she must have thought were his ears. "He's a very well-behaved and trained dog, as all service dogs are, and I'm sure that Miss Belladonna will let you indulge him when she isn't busy."

"I should have let Mountain Glenn take you all," said Jaune, to the audience. They crooned back happily, laughing and pointing at what was to them a loud and very friendly dog. "Let this stupid underwear anomaly eat you for all I care."

Blake laughed awkwardly. "Good boy. Good boy."

"I'm going to pay your muffin place to never serve you again."

This was going to be a long weekend.

Yep, Jaune is a dog and they're after the floating panties from a chapter far, far earlier. That's one of the anomalies I mentioned all the way back then in an author's note. As might have been spotted by some, the panties were visible in the perpetrator's hand when they should have turned invisible as both the stolen ones and the flour did when they were touched by him. They didn't because Nora's panties are anomalous.

And worse still, they've gone wandering!

Next Chapter: 9th January

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